Breaking from The Post:
President Biden is set to address House Democrats on Friday as party lawmakers continue to war with each other over the future of his broader economic agenda, a battle that has delayed a key vote on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
For the second time in as many days, Democrats did not appear to have an immediate way forward on the proposal, which would invest new sums to fix the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. The same internal rebellion that has plagued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) all week instead threatened to push the infrastructure vote into the weekend, denying what might have been a swift bipartisan victory for the president.
Nancy Pelosi is “plagued”? I don’t think so. Also, a vote without a deal to proceed on the reconciliation bill would hardly have been a “swift bipartisan victory for the president.” It would have meant the dozen or so clowns who campaigned and won on the Biden agenda had succeeded in derailing most of it.
More from the same article:
Biden’s rare visit to the Capitol comes as Democrats’ emboldened factions continued to stand their ground. Centrist lawmakers reiterated their belief that the House should vote immediately on an infrastructure package that has already passed the Senate. And liberal-leaning Democrats signaled they did not plan to budge in their opposition, continuing use the public-works spending proposal as leverage in a broader fight over the rest of Biden’s economic agenda.
As I’ve been shouting from the rooftops (just ask my husband), this isn’t a “centrist” vs. “liberal-leaning” or “progressive” thing. It’s most of the Democratic Party caucus fighting for the Democratic president’s agenda. I hope they keep it up. I hope the president joins that fight.
The pressure is working. Manchin cracked a teeny bit yesterday and started talking specifics after refusing to do so. Team Sinema planted a pathetically obvious damage-control puff piece in Axios. (Seriously, I haven’t seen such embarrassingly ham-handed PR since we ran the Kushners out of town.)
Anyhoo, we’ll see what happens, but one thing definitely hasn’t happened yet: The obstructionists who reneged on the initial two-track bill agreement haven’t been rewarded with a vote that gives them what they want in exchange for them giving nothing in return. Every day that remains the case is a victory.
Open thread!
WaterGirl
Happy to see that you put this up, Betty. I was hoping you would see my email saying I thought that the puppy and political posts side by side offer something for everyone this afternoon.
JPL
Every MSM headline today appears to be written by Doug. I hope he’s getting paid.
Martin
California is making Covid a standard required vaccination for school attendance. This will be effective next school year for all 7-12 graders, expanding as vaccines are approved by the FDA.
So while it doesn’t address the immediate issue, it does give districts reason to mandate it immediately as it removes any opportunity to avoid it completely.
M31
Sinema can’t abide a ham-handed PR gap with the Supreme Court assholes
mali muso
Looks like Sinema left town already.
New Deal democrat
Point of trivia: there is an ornate “President’s Room” in the Capitol Building for exactly this purpose. I don’t know if any recent president has made use of it, but Woodrow Wilson did in the service of passing his progressive economic agenda (as opposed to his racist social agenda).
Omnes Omnibus
FWIW I think this all bodes well for passage of both bills, but with the 3.5 trillion knocked down a bit. I wonder if they simply shorten the term of the spending and say they reduced the price. Might that be enough?
cope
Dear, sweet baby Jesus, when will these fuckers grow up? It’s like watching a bunch of 5th graders. I can’t stand to even read the long deep dives about all this shit any more. Thank you BC for doing it for me.
Martin
Nice to see the progressive caucus learning the lesson of negotiating with themselves. Hold the line. Also, learn to market this better. $3.5T is counterproductive in the sense of does it mean we’re borrowing $3.5T or there are $3.5T in pay-fors or could there be more than $3.5T in pay-fors making this debt reduction. That’s barely been in the messaging. I know it’s deficit neutral, but it would make the Manchin/Sinema argument a whole lot harder if that was obvious from the messaging on this.
mrmoshpotato
@JPL:
Hotmessheadlinepalooza!
Martin
@JPL: Yeah, pitchbot is really phoning it in now. They’ve made this too easy for him.
Ocotillo
@mali muso: Medical appointment? Having her head removed from her……
Omnes Omnibus
@mali muso: Planes fly to DC as well.
Kalakal
That Axios article is appalling, it couldn’t have been any more toadying if she’d written it herself. What is it with this ‘mavericky’ twaddle anyway, I may be wrong but I seem to remember that for all the rhetoric & posturing McCain ( and Graham ) just about always votedtvoted party line
Nelle
Sinema is a senator. Medical appts can change to accommodate her. There are even doctors in DC!
She sounds like a Princess Victim, insisting on her privilege while claiming she has no agency or power. She can only see the doctor in Phoenix now. Specializes in passive aggressive games. She is so special so everything waits on her.
trollhattan
Newsom does it. Good. “Still not Texas.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Martin: Speaking of Cal, I had to bring my vac card into work. So apparently for Silicon Valley vaccinations are mandatory.
Baud
Chris Murphy basically said yesterday that now is a fairly arbitrary deadline to force action. Nancy can sit on the infrastructure bill for a while.
WaterGirl
Betty,
This makes me want to shout YES! so much that i could be auditioning for the restaurant scene in When Harry Met Sally.
mrmoshpotato
@mali muso: I’m just going to assume this was something routine that she could’ve had done in DC, because that’s most definitely the case.
Glad she got herself a 6-year, do-nothing (her choice) job.
WaterGirl
@JPL: That was so good I had to add it as a rotating tag. With 2 small changes.
Every time I add one, I take one away.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@JPL: “Some say we have building full of 5th graders for a Congress, other’s scream the Speaker of the House has cooties. The answer is complex.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Yep, once the CR was done, October 1 didn’t mean a lot.
jnfr
Amen, Betty! You are exactly right. Every day we hold on is a victory. Why, this morning on CNN I heard Dana Bash actually point out that the BBB reconciliation bill was Biden’s agenda and that he and the progressives were pushing in the same direction. Just getting anyone in the Beltway media to recognize that is a victory too!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@trollhattan: My niece just went off to UCLA as a freshman and she had a whole list of vaccines she had too take. So, they are trying their best with the kid’s health.
Baud
@jnfr:
Kudos to the progressives too for embracing the Biden agenda. In their ideal world, they would want more, and in the past, they might have tried to “oppose from the left” to move the Overton window.
And kudos to the true moderates who have put country over their own egos.
Another Scott
@Nelle: OTOH, she recently broke her foot running a marathon back in Arizona. Maybe it’s a checkup or something for that with people who are treating her there.
She’s not the only senator who left town.
They can and will negotiate via “electronic device”. All of them will be called back before there’s a vote.
This is yet another nothingburger pushed by Politico that just happens to be easy to spin as her being disrespectful or playing games or whatever. I don’t think it is, myself.
We need S&M’s votes, and we’ll get them in the end. We’ll have a huge victory even if it is (as always) less than what’s proposed and even what’s needed. Progress is always incremental. And we should celebrate it and thank every Democrat who made that victory possible. And work like hell to increase the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate in 2022+ to make it even better.
tl;dr – The GQP is the enemy; sausage-making isn’t pretty.
Cheers,
Scott.
brendancalling
@mali muso: Perhaps it’s surgery to help pull her head out of her ass. It’s lodged up there pretty deeply.
Baud
As someone who has strived for office, I can’t imagine being in a position to be a pivotal figure in politics and squandering it for so little.
topclimber
@Baud: Biden also has the option to remain non-committal or outright say “no” to signing any BIF before reconciliaiton passes. He could goose the process some by saying so.
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: October 1 means a LOT!* To Jimmy Carter. 97 yea! To the PRC, 72! And some Juicers, no doubt.
* Glad it means less to Nancy & Uncle Joe’s (and our future) infrastructure bill.
Tony Jay
You’ll know that both bills are about to get passed when the usual suspects start tweeting that Sin-Man have “won the concessions they privately wanted” and “the Democrat Left have been cut out of negotiations”.
It’ll all be bullshit, of course. Sin-Man will have been forced to fold, a meaningless few provisions renamed or shifted to another bill given to them as facesavers, and the Progressives won’t be involved in the dealing because they already worked in good faith with the leadership and know their priorities aren’t on the chopping block.
But the sun will set in the east and fish will lie down with, I don’t know, with goats or something, before the Liberal Media will ever acknowledge a non-Conservative victory for what it is.
Probably.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: An elegant solution. We know the proposed $3.5T is spread out over 10 years, but most people just glom onto the figure without that context. A bill spread out over 5 years could appear to cut the total in half without changing a damned thing — plus give the conservadems space to climb down.
Woodrow/asim
Damn straight, and it’s to the good of both those Progressives, and the Biden Administration, to basically walk together on this big issue. This is paying off the work between the two that was loosely reported in the media during the campaign, and after.
I will say: I don’t think, in any way, that we need to cut small-c conservative Democrats who negotiate in good faith, out of anything. I think big tent politics has a place, but must depend upon everyone respecting each other, and baselines of civil rights and justice. Without that: it’s too easy, as we see now, for those who advocate for something like the status quo, to overtake events and engagement.
JPL
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Several companies in GA have mandated vaccines for employees.
JWR
From the linked Axios story:
Whispers? Nope. There already exists an effort to primary her sorry ass!
They don’t have a candidate yet. Just raising $$$ for when they do.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: And it’s not even costing any money!!!!!
But it will surely cost the rick in tax cuts and privileges, which is surely the problem for our bought-and-paid-for senators.
JPL
@JWR: I read that a progressive can’t win in AZ, but we won with two progressives in GA.
p.a.
Sinema is in ’till 24 so a lot can change, but I don’t see her losing the primary then getting elected as an (I) like holy joe lieberman did in ’06 if she maintains her current path. People imply she’s already looking for a cush landing spot anyway.
Does anyone think either Dem roadblock senator would switch parties out of spite if/when they get rolled?
Steeplejack
@JPL:
DougJ is a thought leader. That’s reward enough.
john b
@New Deal democrat:
According to wikipedia, Reagan started a tradition of presidents making this room their first stop after inauguration. Reagan actually used it for negotiations, it’s not clear if the other Presidents used it for more than symbolic purposes.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: The problem with shortening the time frame is that we are back at it in 5 years to keep all of Biden’s programs in place but perhaps with a hostile president and congress. So it could be a big deal. Imagine if the ACA had been set to expire in 5 years and it we were going to have to rely on on McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Trump to keep it in place.
Tony Jay
@JWR:
Loud raspberry noise
‘Fiscal conservative’ = I can’t point to any actual reasons for opposing these bills other than a desire to be ‘mavericky’ and suck up delicious donor cash , but if you primary me it’s totally because I won’t kneel at your altar of Tax and Spend.
Jinchi
Hold the thanks until the bill actually passes. In the meantime, making Sinema and Manchin as miserable as possible is a key motivator to get them off their asses. This is not just play-acting on their part. If they could get their own bill rubber stamped, they’d be more than happy to scuttle the rest of the Democratic agenda, entirely.
Kent
@p.a.: I don’t see how they really get rolled. They both have to vote for whatever final deal gets created or nothing goes anywhere. They will just spin it into a win regardless. It’s all about posturing anyway.
JWR
I heard a good podcast yesterday about Sinema with a guy who’s followed her entire career. Here’s a bit of the written introduction to the segment:
Kalakal
@Betty Cracker: I do like that idea.
Kent
Can anyone explain why the business community is so opposed to the reconciliation bill? What is in it that give them so much heartburn? Yes, it is a lot of social spending but I don’t see any proposals to raise corporate taxes. What am I missing? Is it simply ideological?
Betty Cracker
@JWR: The whole puff piece is just an embarrassment.
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.
Old School
@john b:
I’m pretty sure Biden signed Executive Orders in the President’s Room on Inauguration Day.
WaterGirl
@JWR: That is one beautiful sentence:
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Congress has to do a budget every year. That means that a five or ten year commitment is only really good for one year. It’s like NFL contracts. Also, it is harder to stop something that is already happening than to prevent it from happening in the first place.
john b
@Kent: as currently proposed it is funded (at least partially) by raising corporate taxes
Betty Cracker
@Kent: You’re right. But even with the 10 year bill, if the GOP manages a trollfecta in 2024 (crosses self, spins three times, spits through fingers), they’d be able to fuck around with the funding. Seems like we’d be better off being open to changes in the timeline vs. dollar amount since two big priorities are urgent, i.e., addressing climate change, and improving people’s lives in a tangible way quickly so we don’t end up with a GOP trollfecta.
Major Major Major Major
Excited for the eventual $1.4t bill! It’ll have lots of great stuff.
JWR
@JPL: “I read that a progressive can’t win in AZ, but we won with two progressives in GA.”
Hell, given her recent entanglements, like that winery internship, which she somehow used to get closer to the big moolah, who needs a Progressive when a middle of the road Dem will do?
And I see that somebody else has already used the name of the last “Dem” named Joe who caused the party major heartburn, before speaking at the RNC. (Didn’t you know, p.a.? Every time that name is used a puppy dog loses its hair?)
Dan B
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: UCLA and India (actually US CDC) want people to be healthy. I don’t remember all the vaccines for my trip to India. Lots!
Jinchi
@Kent:
In what way would Sinema and Manchin get rolled, anyway?
All the Democrats have agreed to vote for their ‘bipartisan’ bill – in exchange for support on a reconciliation bill that’s currently still under negotiation.
They are the ones trying to roll the rest of the caucus.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent:
@Omnes Omnibus: Passing a good bill with a shortened time frame also makes it less likely that the GOP takes control soon. And we can’t live in fear of what the GOP might do and allow that to stop us from doing what we should do.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker: Maybe her staff who wrote it are trying to signal that she’s just drunk all the time.
jnfr
@Baud:
I do believe that Window has shifted, at least somewhat.
Ksmiami
@Tony Jay: Mr. Jay: since I have an abiding love for your country, it sounds like Brexit bleakness is starting to overtake the nation? Is this true?
Dan B
@Tony Jay: Conservative loss / Liberal victory = end times for: America, Capitalism, people living within their means, individualism, etc. At least as far as the
MSMCorporate media are concerned, and Godless Socialism as far as a host of post-soviet fake Christianist troll farms are concerned.But you knew that already.
Betty Cracker
Did y’all see this?
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: When did houseboats become yachts?
JWR
@WaterGirl: “That is one beautiful sentence:”
Oh yes! I think the host writes his own intros. Maybe his Australian roots give him that “I’m a cousin of Tony Jay” vibe. ;)
gwangung
@Betty Cracker: Hoping that he gets aggravated by the rabble confronting him.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: technically it *is* a pleasure craft…
Geminid
@JPL: It’s possible that a “progressive” might not win a statewide election in Arizona. But Joe Biden and Mark Kelly showed that a regular Democrat can, and that is what we need. Phoenix Congressman Greg Stanton might fit the bill.
Martin
Jerry Brown was absolutely a fiscal conservative. Thats why he raised taxes to pay for things. If Sinema doesn’t like the cost, Democrats have no shortage of ideas for pay-fors.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: Wow. That’s really bad.
Also, someone should probably tell her that the bet way to get her bipartisan bill passed and signed is to honor her commitments on the reconciliation bill. Get them passed at the same time and everyone wins.
@Martin: The $3.5 trillion proposed bill has an enormous amount of pay-fors. But Sinema is busy trying to trip them out while simultaneously complaining that we can’t be fiscally irresponsible and need to pay for things.
Maybe all the articles about being a wino are correct, since that’s exactly the sort of thing I’ve seen drunk people try.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I love that they are doing that. I don’t love Manchin’s glib “I’m right there with you” when he doesn’t want to do those things RIGHT NOW.
Dan B
@gwangung: Where is the go fund me for the Kayaktivists to be at Manchin’s “houseboat” every day? Paying a single organizer to notify people when to show up would do a lot. Machinema’s staff won’t listen to a guy from Liebrul Seattle but they might listen to a groundswell of WV voices inspired by the kayak brigade.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Excellent choice for a good education.
BillinGlendaleCA ’82
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Or as OO says, enjoy the sausage.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Mmmmm, sausage.
Tony Jay
@Ksmiami:
Check out the post above this one.
@Dan B:
Yup. “The Narrative! Won’t someone think of the Narrative!”
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Yep, but it’s probably a positive thing that he’s being conciliatory with them. It’s good that he’s hearing from someone besides the No Labels gang.
Martin
@Geminid: It’s not about being progressive or not. It’s about whether the party agenda appeals to voters and whether or not you support it.
How did Biden go from being too ‘moderate’ during the election to now having his agenda being carried basically by ‘The Squad’ (putting Pramila and Katie Porter as honorary members).
Voters don’t support Sinema because she has moderate ideas. Voters support her (or don’t) because she lines up behind legislation that they like or dislike. Nobody fucking cares what Sinema thinks about the bill. They only care if she votes for it or not. That’s it.
Manchin is on a bit stronger footing because it’s really hard to build climate bills that don’t completely fuck over West Virginia without adding in things that are naked appeals to West Virginia. I’m okay with those naked appeals, BTW, and maybe that’s what Manchin is holding out for. But AZ wins with this bill as-is.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent:
Even if we get everything for 10 years, a hostile president and congress could just repeal it.
JoyceH
I’m watching the coverage of Biden on the hill and just learned a new word. “Smizing” is smiling with your eyes while wearing a mask.
Martin
@MisterForkbeard: I’m thinking of the WV polling that shows 48% approval for the bill that rises to 70% when the pay-fors are explained. Unless you’re really paying attention, you can’t see it. The bill is marketed around it’s cost, not its pay-fors. And some of this is a product of how we talk about these things. Tax credits for billionaires are government spending, but they’re never called that. So we value things in a distorted way, and we market these things similarly.
Single payer saves everyone money, but paying the govt $100 for healthcare vs the private sector $300 gets characterized as costing people $100 because ‘savings’ are never part of the messaging.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m all in favor of doing what it takes to get something passed. I’m just pointing out that there is a potential costs to cutting back the time frame from 10 to 5 years. I assume that it isn’t just annual budgets involved. There is probably a lot of other implementing legislation. I wouldn’t want to see his whole agenda drop off the page in 5 years because Manchin was being a douche and that was the most performative way to get his vote.
Kent
@Martin: Ban coal mining in every damn state BUT West Virginia. Give his state a national monopoly on coal. If they want to tear the top off every mountain in West Virginia so be it if the rest of the country can move forward. Cole won’t be happy. But sometimes you gotta take one for the team.
Ocotillo
Maybe Mark Kelly’s brother Scott, could primary Sinema? I don’t know his politics so that would need to be flushed out to ensure he is not a Trumper. If he is a Dem, low information people love a gimmick like that and he could probably get a boost from being a twin the way McConaughey is polling better than Beto.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: What is a viable solution that has no downside?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ocotillo: I don’t think he is an Arizonan.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Baud!20XX!
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Where is the upside?
Geminid
@Ocotillo: I read that Scott Kelly is a resident of Texas, and is considering a political career in that state. Greg Stanton would be a suitable candidate to run against Sinema in 2024. Stanton was Mayor of Phoenix before he won Sinema’s Congressional seat.
It sounds like top Arizona Democrats want to back one candidate, and Stanton could be the one. But I doubt if he would announce until after next year’s election. Arizona Democrats have to put their energy and focus into reelecting Mark Kelly before they turn to the Sinema problem.
Geminid
@Ocotillo: I wonder why McConaughey polls higher than O’Rourke. I chalk it up to the benefit of having no record to defend, and people’s general cynicism about professional politicians like Abbott and O’Rourke. It could also be that some voters are gunshy, so to speak, about O’Rourke’s advocacy of confiscating assault weapons, stated during the presidential primary. What do you think?
germy
@Omnes Omnibus:
You asked me a question on an earlier thread. I just saw it now.
Manchin paid $220,000 for his boat. It’s 65 feet long. It’s insured for $700,000.
https://www.100daysinappalachia.com/2018/10/fact-check-does-joe-manchin-have-a-700000-luxury-yacht/
Not every boat is a yacht. This one is just Joe’s houseboat.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
I don’t think it’s that. Popular actor vs. reality. That’s all it is at this point. They don’t even know what McConaughey stands for. The preference isn’t real.
Morzer
The Sinemanchic Universe’s choice of Axios for their propaganda excretion is interesting. It’s very much a savvy insider outlet as far as politics goes and that suggests that they aren’t at all interested in what normal people or even their Democratic colleagues think. Not a surprise, but it does confirm just how pathetically invested they are in being members in good standing of Versailles-on-the Potomac.
germy
@JoyceH:
If anyone can smize, it’s Joe.
It’s early, but I think he may go down in history as one of our best presidents. I like him and his administration. I’m glad Pelosi is still around herding the cats.
Ocotillo
@Geminid: I know of some fellow libs here that think Beto ended his potential for statewide elected office here in Texas by his gun control statements. On the other hand, someone here I think said anyone who would not vote for him because that would not have voted for him in the first place. Dems still have a lot of work to do in Texas.
Ksmiami
@Tony Jay: I saw it- brilliant although I don’t want to see cannibalism become a regular diet in the UK…
Geminid
@WaterGirl: When I thought about, it occurred to me that O’Rourke’s stamd on assault weapons would have to have an effect on voters generally, because I figured that even Democrats who were skeptical of the idea would still pick O’Rourke over Abbott. So I sneakily switched “Democrat” out for “voters.” I think you are right though, that McConaughey’s good showing is due to his celebrity status.
I have seen Democrats complaining that this stand will handicap him in Texas. A couple weeks ago Mr. Silverman stated on this forum that O’Rourke flat out cannot win Texas because of it. I’m not so sure myself. But I’m as far away from Texas as Mr. Silverman.
I do know that when Virginia Democrats used their new General Assembly majority to pass six good gun safety measure in w020, they punted a ban on new sales of assault weapons to the state’s Crime Commission for further study, and it is still being studied. And State Senator Richard Saslaw withdrew his proposed law that would have led to confiscation of assault weapons only days after he introduced it.
WaterGirl
@Ocotillo: Where is “here”?
Another Scott
@Martin: Yup.
I’m old enough to remember when bills in congress and new EPA regulations would be talked about in terms of – and often explicitly had to have evaluations including – “cost – benefit analysis”. Sometime in the early ’80s that went out the window. Everything Democrats wanted to do became “tax and spend”. Government programs apparently either set giant stacks of tax money from “hard working Americans” on fire or shoveled it out to “cheats who claimed they had 87 kids and ate T-bone steaks and caviar every meal”. And every tax on millionaires and corporate managers who use their company as their personal piggy bank supposedly came out of pockets normal of people just trying to make enough to pay their bills. Grrr…
It’s malpractice by the press, and it’s been going on far too long.
Economies and people improve economically via spending. Places where governments don’t spend any money and don’t collect taxes are called “failed states” and they’re easy to find – they’re places like Burundi (world’s lowest per-capita GDP and bottom of the “happiness index” list). Taxes are needed to pay for that spending and also to prevent unproductive accumulation of wealth that does nothing for the economy as a whole (but increases the holders’ political power over the rest of us).
Someone made the point yesterday that if the US government had no debt then there would be no T-Bill market – the largest bond market in the world. And yet 10 year Treasury bonds are paying roughly 1.5% now, so it’s obviously a gigantic problem… :-/ The US economy would necessarily be smaller – just as home ownership would be a tiny fraction of what it is now if people had to pay cash for their homes. And people don’t go bankrupt when they take out a 30 year mortgage that is several times their annual income, so Debt/GDP ratios above 1 are not a sign of the apocalypse, either….
We’ve known all this for centuries. We need to remind the public of these facts and reclaim the memes. Biden’s Build Back Better is finally doing so at a large enough level to – I hope – make a difference.
[/soapbox]
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: It’s never been a big problem outside of the Royal Navy.
MisterForkbeard
@Martin: There were some interesting articles about the differences between how GOP tax cuts and this bill (and the ACA) get covered.
Republican bills get cast as $2 trillion savings at 1T cost”, or similar. The ‘cost’ is bullshit and based on extremely wacky Republican logic/lies, but the reporting is favorable to Republicans and the spend the Net Spend, not the Spend.
Democratic bills are always listed as “Democrats want to spend $3.5T of your money”
germy
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: You didn’t ask about that.
germy
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Do I have do every-fucking-thing?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Well…yes.
neldob
And to call it the reconciliation bill? BBC called it the climate change and social welfare bill which makes more sense.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl:
Of course, people said the same thing about trump, and biden too (without the actor part) in January 2020.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Our side is not crazy. Annoying at times, but not crazy.
Geminid
@MisterForkbeard: F#*$king Republican trickledown policies have never helped this country as a whole. Democrats are going to demonstrate the power of trickle up economics by pushing for real full employment with good incomes for as many Americans that can work. Republican claims that their tax cuts would be self-financing were conscious lies. But I really believe that these two bills will be self-financing in the long run through the tax revenues that a truly thriving economy will bring.
Republicans say they oppose the reconciliation bill because it will not work. But they really oppose the bill because they know it will work, and could make them a minority party through this decade and beyond.
MomSense
@Dan B:
Remember when Bernie said it would be easy to pass his agenda because his supporters would lead mass protests at McConnell’s house or something. When are they showing up? I mean damn they make us establishment dem neo liberal corporate shills for the duopoly look GOOD.
Ken
Interesting. I’m not terribly good at it — when I’m sure my eyes are smiling, my mouth is grinning like the Joker, but at least it’s hidden by the mask.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: I believe the bill is less than half the Defense budget. I wish they’d frame it that way more often.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@p.a.: I don’t think Joe Manchin would switch parties out of spite. However, I could see Sinema doing that.
Geminid
@Ocotillo: I am inclined to agree with the person who pointed out that someone who would not vote for O’Rourke because of his assault weapons stance would not vote for him anyway. And I’ve seen polling showing that many gun owners could go along with a ban on assault-type weapons. Although the prospect of confiscation, especially the way O’Rourke expressed it, might give even Democratic gun owners pause.
But O’Rourke can walk that back if he wants to, and modify his position to a ban on new sales of these weapons. He can do this at an appearance where he lays out his entire gun safety platform, and focuses a bright spotlight on rolling back Texas’ reckless new permitless concealed carry law. I think Democrats would be more relieved than alienated, and some Independents would welcome this. And the radical, terrible new concealed carry law had poor polling when it was proposed. I believe the Texas Tribune reported a poll showing that 58% of Texans did not like it.
Tony Gerace
@mali muso: You know, politics aside, any worker who skipped town like this at a critical time for any reason (other than a medical or family emergency) would be at serious risk of getting fired. Goddamn cowardly drama queen
WaterGirl
@Tony Gerace: Yes. Absolutely.
I’ll post this awesome paragraph again. Perfect description. My favorite parts in color this time.
germy
@WaterGirl:
Look at her face in this photo:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/10/when-you-awoke
It really is all about her.
She’s living her best life. Good for her. Bad for the rest of us.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: a yacht is just any boat you can live on if you already have a home.
Ksmiami
@Tony Gerace: yep – she’s an absolute disaster, idiot, self-serving, muddled thinking twat
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”
WaterGirl
@germy: Beaker Sings Feelings
germy
@WaterGirl:
I miss Jim Henson!
sab
@Ksmiami: I am sure you have heard this before. Twat=cunt and isn’t acceptable. Get a better insult.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: She’s mos def a McCainaloid!
WaterGirl
@sab: I wonder. Is there any word with more than 4 letters that has those 4 letters in that order?
Surely there is some crossword puzzle tool that could answer that question?
neldob
@UncleEbeneezer: Yep.
No One You Know
@mali muso: Already donated to Team Primary Sinema. I like their strategy: support for the existing Arizona groups determined to oppose her. Just this once I find myself really, really interested in seeing a decent progressive unseat someone who doesn’t seem to be in interested in the job.
janesays
@Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus:
I have a hard time seeing Manchin going any higher than $2.5T, but I think if they can get him there, they should take that deal. It’s definitely not exactly what we wanted, but it would still be a pretty big win.